Web Analytics Association

7 Web Analytics B2B Metrics Mistakes

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:00:00 GMT

Many times, statistics from web analysis can be misleading. It is all too easy to end up doing the wrong thing based on analysis of website statistic. Here are some pitfalls for the following metrics: Number of Leads by Keyword It is very important to measure conversions by keyword. This lets you know where to focus your marketing efforts. However, many B2B sites and especially those with high cost items have a relatively small number of conversions. In addition, the conversion may occur: During the 2nd, or later visits when the original keyword used is now lost (due to cookie erasing, subsequent search using product name, etc) By a coworker of the original searcher who lands directly on site since the URL is now known Since the numbers are small and may not be traceable to the original search, in many cases it is statistically invalid to decide on actionable items based on the number of leads by keyword. In those cases it is best to find proxies...

1-May-08 5:00 AM

Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started in Web Analytics #3

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Continuing our Things I Wish I Knew... series, Daniel Shields offers his Top 10: 1. Not Everyone Knows What You are Saying The ecommerce workplace is made up of very diverse areas of expertise. Where a few folks here and there might get what you are saying with little effort, most of the people whom you work with are not steeped in statistical understanding, much less its vernacular. For the good of the company, and the sanity of the analyst, it might be advisable to find an in-house reader who gets most of it, but can point out where language might be an issue. 2. Customer Support Exists for a Reason A major impulse to try to overcome is the same which keeps a person from asking for directions in Culpepper, Virginia. You might know you are lost, and you have a pretty good idea that people know how to help you, but for some reason, it means more if you turn the map around and fold it different ways a dozen times to see if it makes a difference. Taking this ego-shot and allowing it...

7-Apr-08 1:00 PM

The Pursuit of Measurement: The Customer's Experience

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:45:00 GMT

We’ve all heard the classic conundrum of businesses today – Half of our Marketing efforts are working, we just don’t know which half. Site Analytics strives to answer that statement by gathering data to allow business to align their message, media, offer and channel with their desired audience to optimize the results and return for the company. However, in online business today, the conundrum has gotten much more complicated. Where does the analytics of the website end and analysis of the customer begin? While we construct our KPIs and dashboards to capture the successes of our campaigns, ad placement, engagement and conversions to measure the success of our company objectives, in the end isn’t the end goal really about the customer and the measurement their experiences and successes (or lack of them)? Spending Growth on Customer Experience In a recently published report ‘Customer Experience Spending Intensifies in 2008, by Megan Burns’, Forrester Research identified areas where...

7-Apr-08 10:45 AM

Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started in Web Analytics #2

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Continuing our Things I Wish I Knew... series, Alex Cohen offers his Top 10: You are Not the First Web Analyst - You do not need to invent web analytics. Somebody has encountered the problem you have. Establish a great base of knowledge by buying books like Web Analytics: An Hour A Day, joining the Yahoo Web Analytics Forum and subscribing to every measurement blog you can find. Go to Emetrics NOW - Your world view is likely to be very myopic: all about your tool, your website, your business. You need perspective. The eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit will open your eyes, especially if youre just starting. Your Tool Can Do More Than You Think - Most people assume that what you get out of the box is the limit of your tool. This is usually wrong 99% of the time. You must not be afraid to ask your vendor about what else it can do. Start a Blog or Business - If you dont really, really own the numbers youre responsible for, youll never really, really learn the data. Pick...

10-Mar-08 12:00 PM

Analyzing Online Advertising using Dart

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:00:00 GMT

When analyzing online advertising begin by looking at impressions. Delivered impressions tell you how many people were exposed to your ad. Impressions are passive. When an online ad is served up and someone views it, it is counted as an impression. The purpose of someone seeing your ad is to entice them to visit your website. In order to visit your website, a customer interaction such as a click is needed. The click sends a customer to a company website. Once a customer arrives at the designated website - that is considered delivered traffic. Delivered traffic can be defined as user clicks and website visits after exposure to an ad. How is your ad performing? Is the ad getting customers to visit your site? A quick metric to use is delivered traffic rate (DTR). DTR is total delivered traffic divided by impressions served. If your DTR is 2% or more you have efficiently accomplished your goal of getting people to your website. A two percent DTR indicates the robustness of your ad, and...

8-Mar-08 9:00 AM

Using Web Analytics to Optimize PPC Campaigns

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Successful insights and optimizations from Web Analytics (WA) data hinges on analyzing timely, consistent, and accurate/clean data; all online advertising should be tagged with WA URL tracking parameters to provide a complete and centralized view of site activity and conversions. Now that disclaimer is out of the way, here are 10 quick and simple ways to use WA data to optimize Paid Search (PPC) Campaigns: Traffic Volume & Conversion Rate Comparisons – Comparing performance between Paid and Natural traffic, paid engine to paid engine, and Paid keyword to Natural keyword offers a great opportunity to set goals and find new and missed opportunities. If keyword ABC has an 11% conversion rate from Google Natural, but 2% on Google Adwords (paid), a PPC optimizer should be making comparisons between landing pages, copy, etc. to make drastic changes versus minimal ‘tweaking’. Without the WA/Natural performance data to benchmark against, an optimizer would have been content (and quite...

28-Feb-08 9:00 AM

Review: The Web Analytics Report 2008

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:00:00 GMT

The Web Analytics Report 2008 is a long report. No, it is a very long report, writes its principle analyst, Phil Kemelor, who is vice president of strategic consulting for Semphonic, in the reports opening words. That is intentional. It is 343 pages of user guide, thorough backgrounders on web analytics applications, technology and acquisition -- and the meat of the report, in-depth reviews of 15 web analytics products and services. Long reports are bad when they are poorly organized. This is not a bad report. Nobody should have to read the whole thing, but that is only because nobody should have to read everything about every product. There is no perfect technology, so good reviewers, particularly in emerging markets, must go beyond capabilities and reveal whats missing, what doesnt work and how to avoid known mistakes. It is thrilling to know what one could do, but it is profitable also to know what not to do. This report has no shortage of reasonable skepticism and warnings. The...

13-Feb-08 10:00 AM

Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started in Web Analytics

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:30:00 GMT

I remember what it was like to walk through the door at my brand new job, my very first job as a web analyst, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. In retrospect, what did I wind up learning the hard way? What would been helpful to know up front? What should I have been prepared to expect? With that in mind, here are 10 things I wish I knew when I started in web analytics: You will sit between the techies and the marketers. Figuratively, and maybe literally. Make friends on both sides of the fence. You will learn all about your business. Not just the stats part. Not just the web part. The work you do in web analytics will only make sense once you’ve put it in the general context of your business. Ahem, what is this thing you call a Visit? Know your standard web metric definitions by heart, and be able to recite them concisely for people who ask. They will ask. Dirty, dirty, dirty. Numbers wont match, they won’t add up, they won’t make sense, sometimes they won’t even...

11-Feb-08 10:30 AM

Online Behavior Analysis - Industry vs. Academy

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Theories are always theories of practice, whereas practices are always practices of a theory. Fernando Pessoa As part of my M. Sc. Thesis on Online Behavior Analysis and my present job as the responsible for Applied Web Analytics at easynet search marketing, I have been reading a lot of academic and industry papers on the fields of Web Mining and Web Analytics. While researching Online Behavior across academic journals, books and blogs, the differences between the industry and the academic approaches seemed to be substantial. Even though both fields have the same overall objective, i.e. measure/understand/improve website usage, they differ significantly on their approaches. Web Mining focuses on the analysis and prediction of visitors’ usage in order to improve website performance and/or recommend products or links based on users’ behavior. Web Analytics focuses on the direct improvement of conversion rates and the stickiness of the website: how to design and organize the...

14-Jan-08 8:00 AM

Measuring Widgets: Interview with Jodi McDermott

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring Widgets What are widgets? What are the measurements for widgets companies track? What level of technical expertise is needed to measure a widget deployment? What types of reports are available for widgets? How can widget metrics be integrated with web analytics data? Interview with Jodi McDermott, Director, Product Management for Clearspring Technologies, Inc. (Jodi blogs on Widget Analytics at widgetanalytics.wordpress.com/). Interview date—November 21, 2007 by Jennifer Day with the WAA Research Committee. Time--23:55. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 1:15 Q: What is a widget and how does it fit into the evolution of the web as a whole? A widget is a miniature portable application that can be placed on a section of a website, a desktop, or on a mobile device. They are typically lightweight web-based apps or images, HTML that can be shared; but they can...

8-Jan-08 3:00 PM

Web Analytics - An Approach to Reporting

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 01:00:00 GMT

By Robert Blakeley, Product Manager WebMD A web analytics program consists of many elements. One of the important elements in the process is the report. This step often does not get the attention it should, taking a back seat to the effort of getting and compiling the numbers (on the Analytics side) or day-to-day operations (on the Business side). It is sometimes abbreviated or omitted altogether in an attempt to save time. This is a mistake. This article focuses on that reporting activity and the structure the report itself. Web analytics helps your team understand how well your Web investment/campaign is doing and how you might be able to do better. But that understanding is not useful to the Business if the insights are not shared in a way that the rest of the organization can focus on and get behind. Getting their attention usually means making Web Analytics part of your regular business process. Part of that regular process is the reporting. Reporting is the analysis...

25-Dec-07 8:00 PM

Measuring Google Gadget Ads: Interview with Christian Oestlien

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring Google Gadget Ads What are Google Gadget Ads? What are top key performance indicators for Google Gadget Ads? How are Google Gadget Ads tracked? Interview with Christian Oestlien, Product Manager for Gadget Ads at Google. Interview date—November 15, 2007 by Kelly Makimaa with the WAA Research Committee. Time--13:02. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 0:25 Q: Why dont you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and Google Gadget Ads. Sure. I am the Product Manager here at Google on an area we call creatives and formats. So, creatives basically covers all the different types of ways we are letting our advertisers reach our end users across our content network. And Gadget Ads is our newest creative format that weve launched. Gadget Ads is something that we are extremely excited about here at Google because it is really the first time that weve offered our...

12-Dec-07 9:00 AM

Blog Analytics & RSS: Interview with Paul Strupp

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Blog Analytics and RSS What are the challenges of measuring blogs? How do you measure success with blogs? How are blog metrics integrated with other web site metrics? Interview with Paul Strupp, Corporate Analytics Manager, Sun Microsystems. (Paul blogs on Web Analytics at blogs.sun.com/pstrupp/). Interview date—July 9, 2007 by Jennifer Day with the WAA Research Committee. Time--21:19. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 0:42 Q: Tell us about yourself and Sun Microsystems? Sun is a major computer and software company with an emphasis on enterprise and network computing. Sun has a large and complex web presence, corporate, java programming, solaris, lots of developer sites, and others with over a million unique visitors a day. One of these sites is dedicated to blogs (blogs.sun.com) and gets around 50,000 visitors a day, although what that number means is the subject of...

26-Sep-07 9:00 AM

Measuring Web 2.0, Ajax and RIAs: Interview with Marc Ryan

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring Web 2.0, Ajax and Rich Internet Applications What are the differences between panel measurements and web based measurements. How Ajax influence the accuracy of page views? Is total minutes the best new key metric to look at? What is the future of the page view as a baseline metric for web analytics? Interview with Marc Ryan, VP of Market Research/ Nielsen NetRatings; July 26, 2007 by Alexander Negash with the WAA Research Committee. Time--29:46. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 00:36 Q: Why don’t you start talking about yourself and Nielsen NetRatings? Sure. I manage the market research portfolio of Nielsen NetRatings. We have been on business since the late 90’s, we saw a lot of technologies come and go over the years and over the course of the life of NetRatings we have got a range of variations of methodologies and primary methodologies, which has...

30-Aug-07 6:00 PM

A podcast with Mario Fantoni of TaguchiNow

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Mario Fantoni of TaguchiNow answers questions about:

Taguchi and choice modeling
Multivariate testing in general
Methodology, technology and creativity
Whether small, large, new or old companies are the early adopters
Small, large and niche markets
Case studies (Nordax Finans, IntelliQuote, WebEx and Dell)
Corporate identities
Focus groups
The 80/20 rule applied to testing
Avinash’s 10/90 rule applied to testing
Head-to-head tests with competitors

Podcast with Mario Fantoni of TaguchiNow

10-Aug-07 11:00 AM

Measuring Rich Internet Applications: Interview with Bryson Koehler

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring Rich Internet Applications-- How to Implement Rich Internet Application tracking (RIA), the challeges of tracking RIAs, the need for strategic planning in technical/tracking implementation. Interview with Bryson Koehler, VP, Global Distribution Technology at Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) Interview date, June 8, 2007 by Jim Humphry with the WAA Research Committee. Time--22:45. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 2:18 Q: As I was looking at your sites I was struck by your Holiday Inn Tediquette application, can you tell me a little bit about that application? Its clearly an interactive online brand education device - it is there to support the Holiday Inn marketing initiative, they really are all surrounding the overall premise of having people to look again and notice in the various marketing messages that the Holiday Inn brand is getting out to their...

6-Jul-07 9:00 AM

Web Analytics in Europe (A Conversation With Six Experts)

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Learn about the European edge, what the future is for European vendors and much more. The experts are also comparing Europe to North America and Asia. Some myths about the state of web analytics in Europe are debunked.

The following people are speaking:

Lars Johansson, moderator, Sweden
Steve Jackson, Satama, Finland
Dennis Mortensen, IndexTools, Hungary
Neil Mason, Applied Insights, UK
Oliver Schiffers, United Internet Media, Germany
Aurélie Pols, OX2, Belgium
Marc Sårde, Creuna, Denmark

Listen here

29-Jun-07 1:00 PM

Google's Web Evangelist Avinash Kaushik interviewed by Bryan Eisenberg

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 13:00:00 GMT

On GrokDotCom, Bryan Eisenberg speaks with Avinash Kaushik about his new book, Web Analytics An Hour A Day. The book is a rare treat for folks who want a thorough education in Web Analytics, but feel overwhelmed by it at the same time. And the best part is that 100% of the proceeds go to charity. Not only is Avinash the author of one of our favorite blogs, Occams Razor, he was recently hired by Google to be their official Analytics Evangelist. (Yes, really.) Part 1 of the interview focuses on: why looking beyond the click to optimize the experience is so necessary. how technology has leveled the playing field, so companies of all sizes can be data-driven. the importance of being data-driven, yet customer-focused. the new data democracy, and how its created an environment where Google needs an Analytics Evangelist. how analytics professionals can work together to help people get more out of their websites. exploiting the long tail (define). some of his more...

23-Jun-07 9:00 AM

Practitioner Blogs

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Six blogs in English run by web analytics practitioners

As a bonus, here are three blogs run by people who were web analytics practitioners until recently but now qualify as consultants:

A practitioner blog in German:

Oliver Schiffers

Do you think your blog should be on this list? Please leave a comment!

8-Jun-07 1:00 PM

Interview with Matt Roche, CEO of Offermatica

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:00:00 GMT

The typical customer of Offermatica is a marketer or head of e-commerce who has been frustrated by the rising cost of media or the ability to market. Matt mentioned, as an example, a merchant who had to spend 75% of her time dealing with production and IT issues. I asked Matt about the biggest advantages to using Offermatica’s solution compared to their competitors’ solutions. He broke it down to three areas: Speed. The burden on IT is less compared to other platforms. It’s a marketer-driven tool intended to be used daily by marketers. It’s a delivery platform. Sort of like an Akamai for personalized delivery.The average Offermatica customer runs 13 campaigns simultaneously and Offermatica is handling almost 10 billion impressions a month. I also had to ask Matt how often he is right when simply guessing which of two options will perform the best. He said half of the time. I’ve found that to be true for me as well (for some reason this reminds me of Hans...

7-Jun-07 1:00 PM

22 Posts About Web Analytics in Europe (April and May, 2007)

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 17:30:00 GMT

Interviews with, or guest posts by, European web analysts Vicky Brock Aurélie Pols Ian Tickle Oliver Schiffers Georges Anidjar Sean Burton John McConnell Neil Mason Sven Gerber Lennart Svanberg Per Strid Raphael Nolens Dag P. Svendsen Fernando Maciá Arturo Ronchi Charlotta Öijer Thalén and Åsa Broberg David Mühle, Theodor Mavrodis & Mattias Fjalestad Dennis Mortensen Michael Kinsbergen Neil MorganConferences Omniture Summit in CopenhagenAnd, finally, the report from Web Analytics Demystified Results of Eric T. Petersons survey

5-Jun-07 1:30 PM

28 Interviews of Interest for Web Analysts (April, May and June, 2007)

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 17:00:00 GMT

John Marshall, CEO of ClickTracks (including a podcast) Chris Koehler, Vice President of Product Management for Visual Sciences Bonnie Thomas, Marketing Director of Memetrics (including a podcast) Dennis R. Mortensen, COO of IndexTools Neil Mason of Applied Insights, UK Dan Zambonini, Technical Director for Box UK (clickdensity) Emmanuel de Boucaud, CEO of ChatStat Brian Clifton, Head of Web Analytics for EMEA at Google Hiten Shah, Founder and CEO of CrazyEgg Tina Bean, Director of Sales and Marketing for VisiStat Avinash Kaushik, Interview #1 Avinash Kaushik, Interview #2 Michael Kinsbergen, CEO of Nedstat Phil Kemelor, founder of PKWeb Communications Pedro Sostre and Jennifer LeClaire, authors of Web Analytics For Dummies Jim Novo, Consultant, Author and Co-Chair of the Web Analytics Association’s Education Committee Arturo Ronchi of 3D Live Media (3D Live Stats) Eric T. Peterson, Interview #1 Eric T. Peterson,...

5-Jun-07 1:00 PM

Web Analytics Wednesday Times Three

Mon, 28 May 2007 18:00:00 GMT

We had a three-part Web Analytics Wednesday in Sweden this month. The news was that it was not just taking place in Sweden – it was global!

The set up:

Live presentations in Gothenburg.
Live presentations broadcast on the web (same as above).
User-only meeting afterwards in Stockholm.

Justin Cutroni of EpikOne, one of the speakers, did a presentation about learning from your mistakes.

Fredrik Strauss of Admeta spoke about automation of online ad optimization.

In total, 88 people were signed up for the three events. Only the webcast had limited “seats”.

The presentations can be found on: http://www.webanalysts.info/webanalytics/web-analytics-wednesday-times-three/

28-May-07 2:00 PM

Measuring RIA Best Practices

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 16 May 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring RIA Best Practices Best Practices for measuring Rich Internet Applications (RIA). Interview with Josh Manion, CEO of web analytics firm - Stratigent. Interview date—May 2, 2007 by Robbin Steffek with the WAA Research Committee. Time--27:14. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 0:30 Q: Josh Manion Background/Stratigent Info Overview of Stratigent 2:39 Q: Why is measuring RIA relevant to the industry of web analytics? The pheonomimon of RIA is often refered to as the launch of web 2.0 and at the end of the day, i really think that what web analytics is about and what the web in general is about, is providing a better user experience to companies or organizations, and Rich Internet Applications, do provide, when constructed correctly, a superior user experience for people, when they are trying to interact with complex applications, or even extending...

16-May-07 3:00 PM

Web Analytics on the road - Scotland

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:00:00 GMT

This month we decided to continue our journey towards Scotland, not far away from our last stop, Sweden. The testimonial comes from Vicky Brock, Co-Chair of the International Committee and Scotland WAA coordinator. Vicky proposes a solution for small WA communities: bring national events online and share them with other countries. Just like what happened on May 9th where WAA members were able to participate and interact with the Global Gurus session on emetrics. So if you thought your national WA community was too small, you should read this and send Vicky an email. Here is the Scotland update: WAA in ScotlandWAA activity in Scotland started over 18 months ago, with a keen group of just three. There was very little awareness of analytics in the market and only one vendor, so we really did have an education challenge on our hands. From the outset we were grateful to have the support of Scottish Enterprise as a sponsor, and the WAA group has reciprocated by delivering short training...

11-May-07 11:00 AM

Measuring a Flash Enabled Product Demo

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring a Flash Enabled Product Demo - How to incorporate and measure the impact of Flash technologies with AJAX and HTML applications. Interview with Caesar Vielmas, VP of Client Services, Idea II (www.ideaii.com). Interview date—April 12, 2007 by Chris Burdge with the WAA Research Committee. Time--10:47. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 0:23 Q: What is your role at Idea Integration? Joined Idea Integration about eight years ago. Currently VP of Client Services responsible for relationships with Fortune 500 clients. I have been in business for 15 years. My focus has been working on marketing teams to enable technologies in the marketing space. I graduated from the University of Texas, and founded a software company called C-com. We developed and produced Macintosh games and three dimensional development services. I am also active in the community and in the Houston...

24-Apr-07 9:00 AM

Web Analytics on the road - Sweden

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:00:00 GMT

In the words of Eric Peterson, Web Analytics Wednesday is the world's only distributed networking event for web analytics professionals. This monthly meeting allows WA practitioners to meet and discuss the latest developments of the industry. And interaction is the most fertile ground for evolution.

With this in mind, we have decided to include in the WAA newsletter a series that will travel around the world and bring each country's idiosyncrasies and history in the WA field. This might provide ideas to practitioners from other places on how to drive the market and educate themselves about other realities.

Since Sweden had the biggest WAW in history so far (97 people), I have asked Lars Johansson, Sweden WAA coordinator, to be the correspondent to open the series. Some of the questions he was asked are: what led to such a big success for the WAW in Stockholm? What is the history and present state of WA in Sweden? What is the market like for jobs?

And here is what’s happening in Sweden:

Web Analytics Wednesday (WAW) in Sweden started with five guys getting together in an Irish pub with four days’ notice in May 2006. Less than one year later, nearly 200 people have expressed an interest in the six WAWs that have been held so far. Participants are much more active now than they were in the beginning.

We have tried mornings/evenings, sponsored/non-sponsored, presentations, panels, networking, and more. The key is to reinvent WAW every time it is held and to reach out to those you think would, or should, be interested in web analytics. We did a survey after our latest WAW and found that 75% of those who have participated more than once think that WAW is important to their business and that all of them would recommend it to someone else.

Sweden is known as a leader in the IT industry, and businesses such as TradeDoubler, Skype, MySQL, L-Soft, PriceRunner, and MindArk were either founded by Swedes or are headquartered in Sweden. There has, despite general technology leadership, been a substantial gap between Sweden and the United States when it comes to web analytics. That gap is now closing, and there has lately been an increase in job openings for web analytics professionals here.

If you want to read more about web analytics in Sweden, please visit www.webanalysts.info.

10-Apr-07 2:00 PM

Web analytics seers peer into the crystal ball!

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 23:00:00 GMT

2007 Prognostications!WAA recently asked some leaders in the industry to peer into the crystal ball and tell us where they think web analytics is going. We’ll let you decipher their findings! W. Gregory Dowling, Senior Analyst at Jupiter ResearchI see 2007 as the year of integration. According to a recent JupiterResearch survey, data integration issues are the number one challenge facing web analytics practitioners. In fact, over one quarter cite data integration as their primary concern. Vendors will seek to address these issues by enhancing their integration capabilities through streamlining the integration process and simplifying third party integration. Because of enhanced integration, we will see the expansion of the web analytics platform far beyond the web site, encompassing virtually every customer touch point. Bill Gassman, Research Director of Gartner ResearchThe biggest issue that the web analytics industry faces in 2007 is a leftover from 2006. I’m referring to...

15-Mar-07 7:00 PM

Research Committee Project: Measuring New Media

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:00:00 GMT

In the 2005 Membership Survey, WAA members expressed a strong interest in better understanding analytics best practices. This Research Committee project, Measuring New Media, tackles the impact new media and technologies Ajax, flash, RSS, blogs, streaming media, podcasts) are having on our sites and on our analytics. Measuring New Media interviews experienced analysts to uncover best practices and lessons learned with these new media technologies. Presented in podcast form, Measuring New Medias interviews address questions as: Can we determine the business impact of new media? Can we determine adoption/operational performance? Are new media metrics being integrated into existing site metrics, and how? What measurement challenges do analysts face with these emerging technologies? Measuring New Media Interviews Subscribe in a reader Interview DateSubjectExpert Interviewed Length (min:sec) Nov 21, 2007 Measuring...

15-Mar-07 9:00 AM

WAA Newsletter March 2007

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Newsletters Home March 2007:You Can... Check out the New Feature in this Months Newsletter Read the Blogger Round-Up for February Apply to Hot Jobs in Web Analytics Get Discounts to Upcoming Events and Resources Attend Regular Events Participate in Committee Activities Tell a Friend New Articles at WAA Hitting the Landing Page Optimization Wall by Bryan Eisenberg Have you ever found yourself in this situation: youve done tons of testing and optimization and youve tweaked your website and your landing pages to the point theres almost nothing else you can do. Youve made progress, then SPLAT! Youve hit the optimization wall. [More Info] Google Click Fraud and Web Analytics by Manoj Jasra How many clicks are actually fraudulent, only 0.02% according to Google. Web Analytics can help get that number even closer to 0. [More Info] How do you define new media? by Wendi Malley What is the new media today? How can it be measured? Should we consider Second Life to be...

13-Mar-07 12:00 PM

Blogger Round-Up: Best of February 2007

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

On the WAA WebsiteNew Media Metrics: Interview with Judah Phillips Judah Phillips, Director Web Analytics at Reed Business Interactive talks about the challenges and measurement of new media. Tracking AJAX, user generated content, blogging infrastructures, and soap envelopes can be a challenge, but a considerably rewarding one. Avinash KaushikGetting Started With Web Analytics: Step One - Glean Macro Insights. Everyone thinks that web analytics have to be so deep. Avinash shows us how to stop looking at all those blades of grass and get the 50,000 foot view first. Eric Peterson The Gradual Building of Context When it comes to measurement, context is everything. This post will be especially near and dear to the hearts of those who stay abreast of the WA blogosphere, as Eric analyzes the traffic, involvement and conversion of visitors who come to his site as referrals from other web analytic bloggers. Context, he shows, is king. Marshall Sponder Research on Digg.com Influencers...

12-Mar-07 8:00 PM

WAA Web Analytics Training Day: San Francisco May 6, 2007

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:00:00 GMT

WAA Web Analytics Training Day
San Francisco, CA
May 6, 2007

Is this the most well-rounded, as-much-as-can-possibly-be-stuffed-into-one-day-taught-by-experts Web Analytics Training in the World?

The WAA thinks so.

Back by overwhelming demand, and bigger than ever!

Web Analytics Association Training Day
Preceding the Emetrics Summit: The Big Picture
May, 6 2007, San Francisco CA

Sign-up by March 23, 2006 for early bird pricing and receive a 20% discount.

Improving on our standing-room-only Washington DC training day last October, the WAA is conveniently bringing two new half-day workshops each derived from the highly regarded University of British Columbia courses in Web Analytics to another convenient time and location, just before Emetrics Summit in San Francisco.

Morning (choose one):

Introduction to Web Analytics
Web Analytics for Site Optimization

Afternoon (choose one):

Online Marketing Campaign Measurement
Creating and Managing the Analytical Business Culture

The annual WAA meeting and reception wraps up the day!

Partake in two half-day workshops for a complete day of best practices presented by subject matter experts. Today's organizations know the importance of the Internet for supporting sales and marketing, facilitating orders and supplies across the value chain, and reinforcing the corporate brand and market position. To achieve truly productive results online, business managers need a solid grounding about the strategies and tactics that support web analytics.

Attend one or two of these workshops and be well positioned to get the most from the jam-packed Emetrics Summit that follows. Return to your workplace primed to put everything you’ll have learned into practice, immediately.

Find out more at https://www.emetrics.org/secure/register_2007_sf.php.

12-Mar-07 0:00 AM

How do you define new media?

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 02:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: New Media Metrics--What is the new media today? How can it be measured? Should we consider Second Life to be a part of this new media? Marshall Sponder, Web Analyst for IBM considers these questions and addresses future trends of new media and rich media. Interview date—February 2, 2007 by Kelly Makimaa with the WAA Research Committee. Time--41:41 MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 44:00 Q: How do you define new media? I define new media as blogs, RSS Feeds, Google Books, podcasts, vidcasts, online video (Youtube, blimptv,etc) social networks, search engines (certainly), affiliate programs, word of mouth, viral marketing, second life, online games, virtual trade shows, online communities, ebooks, kiosks, etc. The buzzword of new media is a term called engagement which has no standard definition or standard way to measure. 1:24 Q: Which...

6-Mar-07 10:00 PM

New Media Metrics: Interview with Judah Phillips

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: New Media Metrics --Campaigns that use new media. Tricks for tracking new media. Challenges in measuring new media. Interview with Judah Phillips,Director Web Analytics, Reed Business Interactive (RBI) www.reedbusiness.com Interview date—February 2, 2007 by Wendi Malley with the WAA Research Committee. Time--19:16 MP3 File Time (min:sec)Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 1:48 Q: Describe the size and scale of your sites. About 100 different properties. 2:42 Q: What interactive media are you using on your sites? Name it and its there in some form. We dont roll it out until we are sure of its return. Ajax, soap envelopes, blogging infrastructures, xml, rich media architectures, user generated content, user tagging. 3:53 Q: Can you give us an example of a campaign using new media? Buying keywords using dayparting, geotargeting,...

18-Feb-07 4:00 PM

New Media and Organizational Challenges: Interview With Judah Phillips

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 20:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: New Media as it relates to organizational adoption, implementation, and challenges How to implement web analytics and new media measurement while embracing your current corporate culture. Implementation strategies, challenges and tips on integrating new media metrics from a global perspective. Interview with Judah Phillips, Director Web Analytics, Reed Business Interactive (RBI) www.reedbusiness.com). Interview date—January 19, 2007 by Wendi Malley with the WAA Research Committee. Time--40:52. MP3 File Time (min:sec)Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 2:00 Q: How do you determine the business impact of new media? First, you need to define media today. To RBI its not only a technology but its a state of mind. People are now active interpreters of new media and they are engaged with the media. 4:00 Passive perception has evolved to active engagement. When...

17-Feb-07 3:00 PM

WAA Newsletter February 2007

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:00:00 GMT

All Newsletters The groundhogs indicated an early spring as the coldest temperatures of the season gripped parts of Canada and the US for an extended deep freeze. As web analysts, we dont base our predictive analysis on the groundhog; we examine our users behavior, we gather their opinions and we watch the results of specific changes. This month we bring you news of WAA Training Days, invitations to get involved and more. We have more interviews (check the sidebar) and a new certification test in development to prove youre a Web Analyst, and arent swayed by the distractions of the online groundhogs. You Can... Planning for Web Analytics Certificate Get Discounts to Upcoming Events Attend Regular Events Participate in Committee Activities Tell a Friend New Articles at WAA Web Analytics in Europe I caught up with Lars Johansson earlier this week to discuss Web Analytics in Europe. Lars was able to provide me with some great information, read below for the...

12-Feb-07 1:00 PM

Web Analytics in Europe

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:00:00 GMT

I caught up with Lars Johansson earlier this week to discuss Web Analytics in Europe. Lars was able to provide me with some great information, read below for the entire conversation... Please tell me a little bit about yourself (and your company) and your background. I am coordinator for Web Analytics Association in Sweden and work for one of Europes largest energy companies that also offers services such as district heating, telephony and high-speed Internet connections. My background is in working with offline campaigns but have been working with both online and offline campaigns for some time. I have worked with all channels: Internet, e-mail, direct marketing mail-outs, inbound calls and telemarketing. I have also done survey work and I even spent several months talking directly with the most displeased customers. Bringing all of that together I think I have a pretty good idea about whats going on on our customers minds. I am currently busy optimizing various campaigns on the...

29-Jan-07 12:00 PM

Measuring Podcasts: Interview with E. Gonzales and B. Moffett at NPR Digital Media

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 07:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring Podcasts How to implement and measure podcasts. Challenges in measuring podcasts. Interview with Enrique Gonzales,User Experience Analyst, and Bryan Moffet, Sponsorship Operations Manager at NPR Digital Media. Interview date—December 19, 2006 by Robin Steffek with the WAA Research Committee. Time--31:12. MP3 File Time (min:sec)Podcast Contents0:00Introductions Enrique Gonzales, User Experience Analyst, NPR Digital Media is online arm of National Public Radio3:09Bryan Moffet, Sponsorship Operations Manager, responsible for monetizing digital media products including streaming media and podcasts. On the web site and in the podcasts, each story is classified which enables each visitor to select their desired content. 4:50Q: How do you implement and track podcasts for NPR Digital Media? Media companies are involved with web analytics because they are trying to understand their customers. Two customer groups of interest: audience and...

10-Jan-07 2:00 AM

Measuring Streaming Media and Flash-Interview with Chad Parizman

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring Streaming Media and Flash-- Tracking the success of streaming media and Flash implementations. Interview with Chad Parizman, Director of Online Analytics, Scripps Networks. Interview date—December 20, 2006 by Jennifer Day with the WAA Research Committee. Time--26:50. MP3 File Time (min:sec)Podcast Contents0:00Introduction2:12Q: What types of media do you use? How do you choose which type of media to use? Focus on streaming media technologies and Flash. Developer availability. Wealth of video content.3:23Q: How do you prepare for launching new media content? Figure out what you need to track by objective/purpose of application. Data document templates state what content owner/creator needs and ties to developer to-dos.5:10Q: What steps do you have to take to track? For Flash: Omniture ActionSource, ActionScript must be set up by developers. For streaming media: Akamai and custom logfile reporting. In the future - a...

10-Jan-07 0:00 AM

Measuring RSS and Blogs: Interview with Avinash Kaushik

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 03:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring RSS and Blogs How to implement and track RSS. How success of RSS feeds are measured. The biggest mistakes people make in measuring blogs and RSS. What new media are used on blogs? Interview with Avinash Kaushik, Director Web Research and Analytics, Intuit. (Avinash blogs on Web Research and Analytics at www.kaushik.net/avinash). Interview date—October 25, 2006 by Wendi Malley with the WAA Research Committee. Time--33:43. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 0:45 Q: How do you implement and track RSS? Started with WordPress RSS, but then moved to Feeburner RSS. Feedburner provides tracking for the RSS feed. Have a feed for my posts and one for comments. 3:35 Q: Is there an advantage to have two separate feeds? Right now there is no choice. 4:39 Q: How do you measure the success for your feeds? Feedburner makes things...

14-Nov-06 10:00 PM

Measuring Rich Internet Applications--Interview With Avinash Kaushik

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 01:00:00 GMT

Interview Summary: Measuring Rich Internet Applications-- How to approach measuring Ajax and Flash applications. Benefits of using rich internet applications (RIAs). Limitations of traditional analytics packages for RIAs. Interview with Avinash Kaushik, Director Web Research and Analytics, Intuit. (Avinash blogs on Web Research and Analytics at www.kaushik.net/avinash). Interview date—October 25, 2006 by Wendi Malley with the WAA Research Committee. Time--39:22. MP3 File Time (min:sec) Podcast Contents 0:00 Introduction 1:00 About Rich Media 2:30 Q: Which rich media applications do you use?—javascript, flash, ajax, rss, blogs 3:50 Q: How do you implement tracking for ajax/flash applications? Google maps and GMail are built on Ajax. Using Flash shopping cart application instead of 4 step process. Zillow.com also an example of RIA. 5:50...

14-Nov-06 8:00 PM

AB Testing: Too Little, Too Early?

Mon, 08 May 2006 01:00:00 GMT

Lately, everywhere you go analytics industry folks are talking about AB Testing. Thats a good sign, since it means the industry is focusing on an overlooked leverage point in their web analytics investment. But as so often happens, achieving full buzzword compliance has become the goal rather than the means; what lies behind the words is often lost. In this case, AB testing – the buzzword – has become a euphemism for plain old testing, which, like ordering liver on a first date, may be good for you, but is certainly not sexy. But throw some AB in front of testing and your dour liver is magically transformed into pate de foie gras. This is a bit disturbing, especially when you hear people sprinkling the AB condiment to add flavor to anything from a focus group (Hey, did you AB Test the response to the new company logo?) to the mundane (Suzies lamp is out, can you AB Test the light bulb?) to the painfully comical (Honey, lets AB test the Lord of the Rings Directors Cut...

7-May-06 9:00 PM

Analytics: You can’t afford NOT to track

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 17:00:00 GMT

Budget, especially for smaller organizations, is often a major factor when researching which Analytics package to implement on a given website. There are business owners who continually push off the purchase of analytics until their company is financially ready to make the leap and online commitment; or until over inflated marketing projections prove to be just that, and mistakes need to be quantified. Something that the majority of business doesnt seem to realize is the immense insight and knowledge they are missing out on by waiting. Its the same old argument: spend a dollar today or two dollars tomorrow. Put that simply, the answer seems obvious; yet everyday, another person throws his hat into the e-commerce ring, purely on the speculation of Google-like fortunes, some great M&A buy-out, or that mythical IPO of triple digit shares, without considering the concept of checks and balances...;.Having analytics on your site is something that doesnt take long to pay itself off. In...

24-Apr-06 1:00 PM

Analytics Analysis for Search Marketers

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:00:00 GMT

Attending Omnitures Web Analytics Summit has made me realize the extent of segmentation and analysis an analytics suite can provide for an organization. As stated in a previous article, about half of search marketers use analytics. This is a surprisingly low figure; however, of this 50%, how many online marketers are aware of the advanced features that can help focus and drive their overall search marketing strategies? Having analytics in place is just half of the solution, actually using them and tailoring them to provide solid information and reasoning is what separates those on the leading edge from those on the bleeding edge. In this article I will provide some insight into some of the complex analytics features that are not readily apparent to many of the marketing professionals in the search industry. (Please note that the topics discussed are a little advanced, but continue reading because they can be applied to any search marketing strategy, large or small, and will...

11-Apr-06 11:00 PM

WebSideStory and Visual Sciences Merge

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:00:00 GMT

WebSideStory and Visual Sciences (now called the WSS Visual Sciences Business Unit) have merged effective February 1, 2006. This merger brings their complementary strengths together to create a dynamic new force in Internet marketing!

The result will be expanded real world understanding of the connection between your marketing efforts and their results, with unparalleled “multi-channel data analysis and real-time data visualization” for WebSideStory's traditional core markets.

WebSideStory anticipates that this merger will also expand transactional analytics markets while continuing to serve the government, travel, media, e-commerce and financial sectors.

For more information on what WebSideStory anticipates this merger will bring to the world of web analytics, and how you can take advantage of their new combined services, please see press releases from Visual Sciences and WebSideStory. We look forward with excited anticipation to see how these two innovative companies will be joining forces to provide dynamic and useful data analysis and visualzation solutions across the spectrum.

26-Feb-06 4:00 PM